Swiatek advances on her 20th birthday, while Sinner escapes in five sets
Day two of the French Open kicked off with two young stars in the sport taking the court for their first-round matches. It was Iga Swiatek’s first match as a 20-year-old on Monday, as she advanced on her birthday in straight sets against Kaja Juvan 6-0, 7-5, in just under an hour and a half.
19-year-old Jannik Sinner fought back in his match after being down two sets to one, defeating Pierre-Hugues Herbert 6-1, 4-6, 6-7(4), 7-5, 6-4 in just over three and a half hours.
Swiatek completely dominated in the first set against Juvan, winning 80% of the points on both her first and second serve, while winning 70% of the points on the return, according to Infosys Match Centre. Swiatek broke Juvan three times in the set on six chances, while holding Juvan to no break point chances of her own.
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The second set was much closer, as both players had great looks at break points. Juvan managed to break Swiatek once on four opportunities, which was not enough, as Swiatek broke twice on seven attempts. It was on her fourth match point in the game where Swiatek finally got it done, taking the set 7-5 and winning on her 20th birthday.
For Jannik Sinner, he was a single point away from losing the match, as at 4-5 in the fourth set, Herbert had a match point on Sinner’s serve at 30-40. Sinner would go on to save the match point, hold serve, break Herbert the next game, and then serve out the set to force a deciding fifth.
In that deciding fifth, Sinner got the early break, breaking Herbert in the first game of the set. Herbert would not get a single look at a break point in the set, as both players continued to hold serve until Sinner closed it out, taking the fifth set 6-4.
The biggest key in the match was Sinner capitalizing on the majority of his break point opportunities that he had in the match. Sinner only had 10 break points in the entire match, but was able to win eight of them, converting 80% of the time. For Herbert, he had 12 chances to break in the match, but only broke Sinner four times, according to Infosys Match Centre. In the end, Sinner was the better player on the big points on Monday.
Next. 2 dark-horse candidates to watch for in the women’s draw of the French Open. dark
Next up for Swiatek will be Rebecca Peterson, who defeated Shelby Rogers on Monday in a marathon three-hour match. For Sinner, he will get fellow countryman Gianluca Mager, who took out lucky loser Peter Gojowczyk in four sets.